Monday, March 16, 2015

How to Succeed in Graduate School - Part 2

Almost immediately after posting “How
to Succeed in Graduate School” 10 days ago, I started receiving comments
reminding me of other tips that I should have included. Now 1300+ views later, the original post clearly has to be Part 1 and I here provide Part 2. (Don't worry, I won't test your patience further with a Part 3.) As in Part 1, this post
applies most directly to students who wish to make a career of research in
academia or, to some extent, in government/industry/NGO. In addition, all of
the suggestions apply to PhD students, whereas only some apply to MSc students. Finally, my experience - and therefore advice - relates most directly to students in ecology and evolution, although I am sure much of it applies more broadly.

EVEN THE BEST LAID PLANS…

Driven in part by the requirements
of committee meetings and qualifying exams, students try to map out their
thesis in precise detail: chapters, papers, time lines, sampling/experimental
design, stats, etc. Doing so is all well and good, but 12 years of experience
on student committees has made clear that such plans are NEVER realized. I
would suggest a crude estimate that only 1-2 proposed chapters actually make it into a thesis, and
each of those that do ultimately look quite different from what was proposed.
In short, planning is great but flexibility and opportunity are just as
critical. Keep your eye out for exciting new ideas even if they weren’t in your
original thesis plan; these inspirations often pan out as well or better than the
original plan. And don’t stress out too much when your careful plan implodes – just
accept from the beginning such an outcome is likely. As a specific implementation
of this general suggestion, never apologize for failing to realize your original
plan when discussing your work in talks or presentations (and try to avoid it
in committee meetings). In reality, no
one cares what you didn’t do, they only care what you did do. Talking about what you didn’t do just distracts and
(sometimes) annoys the listener. In short, you should focus on what you have
actually achieved and what you plan to do next.

Students are often encouraged to provide
a strong a priori prediction for a
given study, which can lead to several problems. First, it is usually easy to
make a reasonable prediction that is directly contrary to the prediction advanced
by the student: increasing A could just as easily lead to decreasing B as
increasing B. Second, in correlative studies, one can nearly always conceptually
invert the x-axis (presumed to be the cause) and the y-axis (assumed to be the effect)
and yet still have a perfectly reasonable interpretation: see my post on “Faith’s
Conjecture.” Third, when the study is actually conducted, a priori predictions are often NOT confirmed.
Instead, negative (non-significant) or contrary results frequently emerge. Fourth,
a strong a priori prediction can lead
a student to assert support for the hypothesis when, in reality, the data more
strongly support an alternative. This disconnect is very common in papers that
I edit/review: in essence, the inferences aren't supported by the data. (Many
journals even have a check-box in their reviewer forms for just this outcome.)
For all of these reasons, a single prediction is usually not optimal. Instead, it is much more useful generate plausible alternative
predictions that correspond to alternative mechanisms/processes/effects.
That way, no matter what the outcome, you already anticipated it and you have
an explanation for it. Moreover, you are less likely to be disappointed when
your data don’t support a prediction, and disappointment in such cases has a
huge influence on how enthusiastic and confident you are in presenting your
results. In closing this point, I need to note that your supervisor might have
a particularly strong opinion about predictions and, if so, you obviously need
to take that into consideration.

Following from the above point, a
given project always looks best before the actual work starts. After that,
entropy happens and things start to fall apart. Targeted populations can’t be
collected. Permits can’t be obtained. PCRs don’t work. DNA degrades. Funds run
out. Hurricanes or floods destroy replicates. Hard drives crash (whatever else
you do, make frequent backups of everything). And so on. Yet the project often
turns out OK anyway. The problem is that most students lose excitement and interest
as their ideal visualization transforms into messy reality – and this disillusionment
increases with time, which decreases the motivation and drive to publish the
work. Then they move on to something new – like a postdoc – without having published
their previous work and the “grass is
greener” syndrome kicks in. Now you are planning a new project, which as
noted above looks ideal in concept, whereas the older reality is tarnished. As
a result, efforts are often directed toward the newer work and the older stuff
languishes. Yet it remains valuable to publish the older work as soon as
possible. Stated in a more concrete fashion, you shouldn’t neglect your
unpublished PhD work after you graduate. One reason is that your new project
will also pick up considerable tarnish before you get around to publishing it.
Another reason is that most people get their 2nd post-PhD position
on the merits of their PhD work, not on work conducted during their 1st
post-PhD position. Timeframes for transitions between most positions (e.g.,
postdocs) are simply too short to get much on your CV from your current
position before moving on to the next one. A third (related) reason is that
following through on your PhD work is usually by far the quickest route to a
new publication, and lots of publications produced quickly will help your
career. (Great advice on manuscript necromancy – breathing life into a “dead”
manuscript – can be found here.)

FIGHT THE IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Despite
external evidence of their competence, those with the [imposter syndrome]
remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have
achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of
deceiving others into thinking they are moreintelligentand
competent than they believe themselves to be. (via WIKIPEDIA) A number of
students fall into this trap and yet I can
assert with confidence that success in graduate school comes FROM YOU. Certainly
it helps to have a supportive university, department, supervisor, and lab, but
research success requires you. If you
have a cool research result, you obtained it. If you publish a paper, you did
it. If you get an award, it is because you deserved it. None of this would have
happened without you. Note that acknowledging your own abilities doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get help from
others – that is often essential too. No one can be an expert in everything,
and it makes the utmost sense to get help from experts. I am reminded of the
pithy qualifier offered at the start of his defense presentation by a fellow
graduate student, Andy Dittman: During my
talk, when I say “I”, I really mean “we”; and when I say “we”, I really mean
“they.”

What examiners want to see at your
defense is a colleague rather than a student. The whole point of being awarded
a PhD is that you are being recognized as intellectually equivalent to the
people sitting in judgement on whether or not you should enter that club. Thus,
your defense will always go most smoothly if you imagine yourself as a
professor giving a seminar in another department, rather than a graduate
student humbly seeking approval. Importantly, this advice is not an
encouragement for you to be arrogant or dismissive, as I suppose sometimes
happens with seminar speakers. With this in mind, emulate seminar speakers that have come to your department and whose
talks (and answers to questions) you, and others in the department, reacted to
best. Be confident but not arrogant. Be assertive but not abrasive. Admit
when you don’t know something but don’t apologize for it. Listen respectfully
to questions but don’t be cowed by them. Those people out there want to see you
as their equal and you should proceed accordingly. (Here is some related advice from The Professor Is In)

The maximum length of your degree
is often set by your university, department, or supervisor – and you need to meet
those deadlines. So you can’t take too long. However, you also want to be to
quick about it. Trying to finish too quickly will generally decrease your
publication quality, quantity, or both. These outcomes are problematic because getting
your next position depends largely on your PhD publications. Thus, you shouldn’t
rush yourself out the door unless it is required. Note that following this
advice will also help to fix problems that can arise from the “grass is
greener” syndrome noted above. However, you certainly shouldn’t PLAN to take a
long time, nor PLAN to exceed the time that you initially schedule. In such
cases, you will find yourself running afoul of Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even
when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.Thus, make a realistic time plan and try to meet it but don’t rush
yourself at the end if opportunities permit. Moreover, it is critical that you
use such extra time productively – you need to get papers out!!!!!!

In direct contrast to
the above encouragement, some students drag on way too long. They insist on
getting everything perfect. They want to publish every paper before submitting
their thesis. Or they simply procrastinate endlessly. This strategy is also a
very bad idea. You need to work productively and efficiently and submit your
thesis and move to the next position without worrying about publishing
everything. I suggest you start planning
your next position, such as a postdoc, at least a year in advance. Networking
is critical: start talking to profs at meetings. Grants are great: apply for
postdoctoral fellowships as they will give you the most flexibility for the
future. But, critically, don’t spend so much time networking and writing grants
that you diminish your publications, because these are by far the most
important predictor of success in obtaining your next position. Thus, you need to find the sweet spot between not
rushing and not dragging. My former student Ben suggests a nice analogy: “I find myself with the mental image
of a pendulum swinging; when you graduate, you want to be on the upswing, but
not yet to that pause at the top of the swing where you no longer have any
momentum.”

I am have encouraged to also talk about
personal interactions, such as when you and your supervisor don’t get along. Or
you hate your lab/office/field mates. Much has been written on these points by
others and I am not going to get into them here. They are simply too
context-specific to fit into this rapid point-by-point style of advice. If you
really want to work through these issues, I suggest you first talk to the
people with whom you are having trouble and then talk confidentially to a
neutral third party (another prof, for example). And always be respectful, regardless of how you feel about someone.